Life with Emmet

Emmet is getting bigger and more alert and is spending more time out of his pouch, which is fun. He generally gets a bit of an exercise during his pouch changes. Sometimes he's really into it, sometimes he just wants to get back in his pouch. He's getting better at this whole hopping thing - he'll do laps around his mum (Kristie). But sometimes he'll shake his head and throw himself off balance and start doing this out-of-control zig-zag jump. And sometimes when he's making a tight turn around Kristie, he'll end up running into her, instead. But he's getting better and better at it!

AND, I got to do my first feed this week (quickly followed by my first and second solo-feeds)! It's a lot like feeding a baby - you mix up a special formula, put it in a bottle, warm it up, and feed him. And every time you feed him, you also have to toilet him, which involves getting a wad of tissue down there and "tickling" him until he takes care of business. The poor roo moms have to do this orally. :b I have decided, as much as I like the idea of giving birth to something that's the size of a peanut, I'm glad I'm not a kangaroo.

Happy Winter Solstice!!

Woohoo!!! Longer days from here on out!! This is a very comforting thought for me as I bike around town in the dark. I have good lights on my bike (as long as I replace the batteries), but it's still just nicer to have daylight.

Penny for your thoughts

So I’ve realized that there are two topics of conversation that Ben and I repeatedly revisit when we have time to just chat – while we’re walking Ani or driving long distances or taking train rides. Neither of them actually move us towards any particular outcome or resolution – they’re just things to talk about.

So the first is about our future and what we’re doing with our lives. And not really in a practical way (e.g., should I take this job or not), but in more of a whimsical way (e.g., maybe we could get jobs running a biological field station on a remote island; maybe we could learn Spanish and go live in Spain; maybe we could both get jobs with a pharmaceutical company and see what it’s like to get a real paycheck; if we have kids we should have a toffee-making weekend every fall; wonder if we’ll ever own a house). They pretty much cover any possible direction our lives could go, and are entirely shaped by something we’ve seen/heard/felt recently and not so much shaped by reality. But it’s fun to imagine.

The second topic of conversation is guessing who will actually come visit us while we’re in Australia. We generally agree about most people, so making bets isn’t that interesting, but there are a few people we debate about. So will you prove us right or wrong??? [Reminder, plane tickets are still really cheap right now… :)]

Vivid Sydney

As “the largest light and music festival in the Southern hemisphere,” you can be sure this was on our list of things to do while I was in Sydney!! So my last night at home, we finally got down to check it out. Although there are a lot of different facets to this festival, one of the main things was “Smart Light Sydney”. Basically, artists set up their “light art” installations along the harbour. They range from a light in a tree shining down on to a bench:
Ben as art

to projecting images onto the Opera House:


It really reminded us of going to see a festival of lights display at Christmas-time in the US – lots of families and couples coming to check out the lights, all rugged-up since it was a cool night. There were street vendors out along the route, one person doing a unicycle act, others playing music/singing. Just a good happy feeling.
And since we were down there and this was partly a festival of music, we decided we should see a show at the Opera House, so we finally made it inside!

Impressive, isn’t it?!?! OK, so this isn’t the main big concert hall – this was a little playhouse in one of the side-wings. I don’t even know how many theatres they have, but there are several. So we saw Reggie Watts, and he is absolutely incredible. He has a 10-octave voice range, can flip-flop between musical genres like it’s nothing, can create amazing songs on the spot with his loop machine, and he inserts this hilarious social commentary throughout the show to top it all off. It was a great evening, topped off with a delicious sticky toffee pudding (you knew I had to get food in there somewhere).

Lingo Lessons: Crook

Leave it to a country founded by convicts to use the word “crook” to describe a very non-criminal part of life: being sick/ill/unwell. It’s used as an adjective – for example:
“Why weren’t you at work last week?”
“Oh, I was really crook. Couldn’t even get out of bed.”

And Ben and I have both been a bit crook lately, so it seemed an appropriate time to share this lingo lesson. I guess it is that time of year. Luckily, we both evaded the dreaded swine flu… for now.

Don’t play with your food

MasterChef Australia has possibly become Ben’s favourite TV show lately. He’s not quite to the point of actually taking notes, yet, but he might be soon. Between this show and our new pots and pans, he’s becoming quite inspired in the kitchen! If only grad school didn’t get in the way, I’m sure I could be married to an excellent chef.

One of the things he learned recently was how to clean and prepare a whole squid. So while I was home, we visited the seafood shop and got ourselves 2 whole squids and a blue crab. We sautéed/boiled/fried to our hearts content and then made a delicious garlic butter sauce. All I can say is “Watch out MasterChef!!”


Yes, that's the same crab. Cool colour change, huh!?!

Ani's birthday

Happy 6th birthday to Ani! Yep – our little girl is turning into an old lady. And every year (as long as we remember) she gets a special treat that’s all hers and she doesn’t even have to work for it (much). Some of her previous birthday treats include an Arby’s roast beef sandwich, a vanilla ice cream cone, and a lollypop. This year we wanted to go with a classic Aussie treat, so we were debating between a meat pie and a sausage roll. The sausage roll was cheaper, so guess what we got! Oh, poor little dog with cheapskate parents. AND we made her wait with it right under her nose so I could take a few humiliating photos. I think she still enjoyed her birthday, though.